The driver heard the transmission too and looked at me. They were all counting on me to keep them alive. I couldn’t let them down. “Just keep the shields up for as long as you can. Pull power from wherever you need it, just keep us protected.” I thought for a moment. “How long until nightfall?” I asked him back.
“Shit.” That was less than comforting.
“What?”
“The computer maps us at over sixteen hours of daylight.”
“Are you kidding me??” I shouted back. The ship took another hit and we were thrown to the transport’s wall again.
“The last jump went quicker than we anticipated. We arrived early.”
I was fuming. This little job was turning into a suicide run. There was no escape. “What are they shooting at us?”
“We haven’t ID’ed them yet.”
“Widen the scanning on the countermeasures. They’ve got to be shooting something we gave them. Those bastards can’t think of anything original to save their lives! Tell the other ships to hold their positions; we’ll call them when we need them.”
I wasn’t going to sit there in the hatch by the driver’s seat for long. Behind me about half of the soldiers were still stuck on the ceiling. The rest were helping them and had the situation under control. “Hurry up and get them down. We’ll form up in the cargo bay once we’re all out.” I instructed the men closest to me before popping the roof hatch.
It was big enough for me to fit through easily but with the transport stacked on the other and sideways, I had a significant drop ahead of me if I misplaced a step. Clinging to the surrounding handles, I hoisted myself out and climbed along the reverse grade of the transport’s body to the top. Below me other soldiers were exiting the second transport. I assumed the ones from mine would be joining them shortly if they hadn’t already.
The rear cargo hatch took up most of the rear wall of the dropship and there was no way I was going to crack that open without a prior look at our surroundings. Looking up at the other wall far above me, I could make out several small airlocks built into the frame. I decided to make for one of them.
I gripped the stamped metal floor of the cargo bay and started up the side. Tracks used to tie down cargo were useful as impromptu footholds and I didn’t have any trouble getting all the way up to my destination. Getting through the airlock door was another challenge but it didn’t slow me down much. Safely on the far side I equalized the air pressure and popped the outer hatch.
There was the complete piercing darkness of outer space above partially masked by a massive sub-light engine held high above my head on its wing. As my view took in the surroundings I saw a perfectly lit moonscape all around. The most prominent feature was the rim of the crater which wrapped and encircled all of my vision. Smoke rose from the ship and smaller impact craters all over nearly vertically. At least our intelligence had been somewhat close; the planet was nearly devoid of air. A few more rounds hit the ground beyond the shields with hardly a sound just to illustrate my point.
I made out several points along the rim with signs of activity. Thin columns of smoke rose from most, and I made a note that they were the ones firing on us. My other downed transport was only a few hundred meters away but had obviously taken far more damage than mine. Like my ship, it was still taking fire but didn’t have the shields to protect it. They probably didn’t have the power to use them or maybe no one was left to run them.
The port wing rose above me and obscured the view to the north so I left the relative safety of the airlock to check the far side. I stepped carefully, not wanting to take a spill and go sliding down the fuselage. Matters were made worse with each impact we took. The entire platform rocked a few meters to either side every time.
Following the wing helped me retain my balance and I reached the leading edge safely. I took a knee and looked out across the landscape. Sunken into the rim I could make out a fortified position and base entrance. A massive row of paneled windows were up higher and gave a clear picture of the entire base. Below that was a series of smaller outcroppings every hundred meters or so. I could see large mounted weapons on a few and shadows of movement of individual soldiers on all of them.
Two of the outlying positions, one to each side, had unique systems installed. From what I remembered of the admiral’s briefing, those were the shield generators or at least their projection stations. More shots continued to rain down on us. I instinctively ducked when one cooked off the station I was watching, and slammed into the ground only a few meters in front of me.
The guidance of the missiles was shoddy at best. Most came in low or high but a few impacted the ship or were deflected by our own shields. There was only the faintest noise from the blasts confirming my hypothesis on the extremely thin atmosphere.
Tiny flashes appeared on the far side. It could only have been small arms fire. I ducked and watched the ship for its reaction. The shield didn’t even pick them up, they were so small. The close ones fragmented upon hitting the fuselage and I crouched lower to avoid getting hit. They kept firing but their range was too great and their weapons too inaccurate to take me out.
At ground level was a wide regular pattern that could have been bay doors. They were in the right place and I knew that they’d be our way in. There was no other way: we were going to have to cross the ground on foot.
I moved quickly up to the front of my ship and broke open the forward hatch below the flight deck. The remaining crew looked surprised to see me but was in no position to stage a defense. They were all braced in the sideways cabin to allow them access to their controls but stay upright. I carefully climbed across the floor to the copilot’s area. He had a map of the area up on his screen and had mapped a number of locations around the edge.
From what I saw his assessment nearly mirrored my own. The doors were marked simply as ‘Structure’. “This has to be the entrance.” I said, pointing to the mark. “Can you read anything on it?”
The copilot shook his head. “If those are doors, they’re really thick. I can’t see anything on them. You’d need a ship to bombard them,” he paused. “Unshielded, that is. Right now a direct hit from a bomber couldn’t crack them.”
I looked at the network of targets nearby. “These two are the closest shield generators, right?” I asked.
“I think so,” he replied. “They’re putting out a ton of energy and have the heaviest defense.”
“If I can take them out, can you have one of the remaining ships come in over the ridge and hit the doors?”
“Sure. I’ll have them on standby. Give me a signal when you’re ready and I’ll send one in.”
“That’ll work. Be ready.” I replied and made my way outside.
Back through the airlock I went and shuffled as fast as I could down along the ship’s skin. Something in my vision caught my attention amongst the incoming shots. I looked down through the building clouds of dust and saw movement around the other downed ship. From their cargo hold, the surviving soldiers were making a perimeter.
From my cover behind the wing I hit them with a signal light. One signaled back and I hailed them on their radio channel.
“HEY!” I shouted through the microphone, “What are you doing out there? You’ve got no protection!”
“Better than inside.” A voice came back. “The generators failed and we started taking penetrating hits. The ship won’t last much longer. Where do you want us?”
“Move up to our ship.” I ordered, “Our shields are still holding and we’re set to move to the north ridge line.”
“Can do.” The voice paused. “We got the last of our men on the ground. Moving out.”
Squad by squad they broke from the failing cover of their ship and took off in a sprint across the few hundred meters between us. Fire from the east and west ridges intensified once they got caught in the open.
I switched frequencies and called my team below. “This is Grant. We’ve got reinforcements incoming from behind. Open the mai
n cargo hatch.” A low rumble emanated under me as the doors opened.
I looked up just in time to see a massive projectile detonate right in the midst of the leading group of soldiers. The fireball kicked dust and smoke in all directions with hardly a sound to accompany it. One, then a second soldier emerged from the cloud, stumbling with each step they took. At least a dozen more had vanished. None of them looked back.
More shots impacted all around and they ran even faster to avoid the blasts. Their formations spread out to make for harder targets, but that hardly served to reduce the alien weapon effectiveness. Rounds rained in from multiple directions and tore through the survivors.
I ran back to the rear of my ship, above the doors. “Hurry up!” I shouted down to them, “You’ve gotta move faster!” I watched as the first few men crossed into the protection of our shield generator and all but collapse at the threshold.
The ones still outside kept dodging the incoming rounds. I could see a few thrown off their feet that were still moving out behind the others. There was no point in going back to the airlock behind me. I judged the distance and jumped onto the open loading plank, grasping for a few of the vertical welded treads.
My left hand held on as I was pulled down to the ground. I tightened my grip all I could and slowed my descent. I landed hard on the dusty ground but forced myself to my feet. The last of the survivors were nearing and I waved them on inside.
Two staggered along, holding each other up. I took a step out to pull them in but another round beat me to it. Only a few meters away from our shield’s protective barrier an alien rocket scored a direct hit. As I reached out with my hand, the explosion simply vaporized them into a puff of red smoke. I stood there in shock for a brief moment before snapping back and ducking inside.
Shouts of pain reverberated through my radio as the wounded were whisked off to find a sealed medical bay. They didn’t have much of a chance but I didn’t want to stop the men who carried them. Most of my men were fit for duty. The ones who had successfully evaded the mortar fire were doubled over and exhausted from the sprint but otherwise were mission capable.
It was an odd conglomeration of soldiers and equipment. Most were seated on the remains of spilled pallets or the twisted transports. All were waiting for orders. I cleared my throat and hit the All Call key.
“Gentlemen, thank you for taking care of our fellow soldiers. To our friends who made it off their ship, we are grateful for your help. I wish I could tell you that was the worst of it but we all know what will need to be done.” All eyes were on me. “Two heavily defended battle stations are to our north. They hold the nearest shield generators and a large concentration of defenders. We need to assault them and destroy the base. If we don’t, the fire will continue to pound us here and eventually our shields will fail.”
“Without their base cleared out, we all know there’s no hope of a pickup.” I thought for a moment. “We’ll be under fire the second we leave the ship. As we leave, we’ll launch every countermeasure we have. I mean, chaff, flares, decoys, smoke and flashes: anything you have to confuse them, find it. I’ll wait as long as I can but be ready to move out!” I ordered.
With my instructions issued, the soldiers dispersed and sifted through our cargo load. A few took off for the armory and the bridge prepared all of the built-in countermeasures for launch. I kept an eye on the outside just in case things changed.
The situation wasn’t getting any better. The rocket fire was continually becoming more focused and rocked the whole structure of the ship with each impact. If they came any closer together our shields wouldn’t be able to charge fast enough to keep up.
They didn’t last long. The soldiers had started to filter back when the aliens scored a direct hit with too much energy for the ship to absorb. Half of what was the floor exploded in a massive ball of fire and sparks that threw us to our knees. There was no more time. “EVERYBODY OUTSIDE!!!” I shouted, forcing myself back to my feet. “Form up inside the shield limit!”
The soldiers exploded through the exit and tumbled out onto the dusty ground. I saw them spreading out to provide some type of security. “Hey, stay with me!” I ordered. “We’re going to the north ridge. Transport One take the left, Two take the right. Shuttle Three, fill in where you can.” I stepped to the front of the conglomeration, unslung and held my rifle up at port arms. “MOVE!”
From the first step I took, we were in a shooting gallery. I immediately tracked rounds by the dozen coming in on us from all over the ridge. All we could do now was run faster, and that’s all I did. I switched up my grip and hurled smoke grenades before and beside us to break the enemy’s lock. I don’t think it helped in the least.
I couldn’t hear my soldiers. In fact, I couldn’t hear anything more than my own heavy breathing. The silence made me feel like I was alone on the world, even with the other men keeping up with me.
With only a few trace gasses surrounding us, I felt more than heard the closer blasts but I couldn’t focus on anything but the far side of the plain. Chancing a glance to the side I saw the others keeping pace with me. We were only a fraction of the way along and already our numbers were thinning. As I watched, at least three shells came down right on top of us. Our armor protected everyone except for the unlucky ones who took direct hits. “Come on! We’ve got to keep moving!!” I yelled out as another blast emanated from behind me.
I looked up and saw another rocket lift off from the far edge of the crater. I don’t know why but it instantly stood out to me. Higher than the others, it lifted into the sky and arched over towards us. Suddenly I realized it wasn’t something special, it was coming right for me. With an extra burst of speed, I dodged to the right and rolled into a ball to protect myself as best I could.
The rocket hit and I heard it loud and clear. The shock wave felt like I’d been kicked in the side but I got back up and kept moving. I looked back again. More had fallen. One had been even closer to the last blast than I had been and was still struggling to get back up. Beside me another soldier ran by and took a round from a sniper’s rifle to the head, shattering his helmet and dicing the remains of his head.
I swore under my breath, and turned back, shouting words of encouragement to the others. I reached the man on his knees, grasped his shoulder harness and pulled him up. “Come on, you’ve got to keep moving!” I commanded, “Stay right with me, all the way across!” he didn’t respond, save for a tiny nod, but we continued on.
Dodging left and right we put the meters behind us and what seemed like an eternity later I could make out features of the enemy battlements. There was one opening in the stone under the shield generator. It was nothing more than a wide slit to fire from but I could see a few teams of gunners moving about within. On the side, a rocket team was out in the open, firing on us with a few portable launchers.
We were close enough for me to risk a shot. I froze in place, lined up a shot, stopped my breathing and pulled the trigger firmly to the rear. The line of bullets I released tore the leftmost grenadier to shreds and I raked the sights right, tearing into the rest of its team before bolting forward again.
The enemy’s position was nothing special, despite their creepily unique and yet familiar arms. Once we got far enough along, it didn’t appear to be more than a reinforced stone fighting position. Their standard fare and yet hardly a challenge for a moderately courageous Space Corps force.
That didn’t mean the aliens were prepared to die alone without a firefight. With the rocket team down, small arms fire intensified as we ran closer. Shots kicked up the atomized dust all around and occasionally found their way to my armor, feeling like cinder blocks being broken over my chest.
Every part of me burned as I crossed into grenade range. It took all of my effort to pitch the first frag round overhead and onto their position. It blew a sizeable chunk of material off of the left side of their wall and I closed in on it.
The alien post’s perimeter was strewn with twisted piles of sc
rap metal, chopped up with sharpened blades bent outwards to impede our movement. Two more grenades came in from behind me as I lay down covering fire while completely exposed. They blasted apart a few of the defensive heaps and I moved in closer. The corner that I had just hit was still smoldering and I had a clear path to it.
“HOLD YOUR FIRE!” I shouted to the men behind me and with my last bit of searing energy, I sprinted up to the boundary and charged through the weakened remains of the wall. My weapon tucked close, I tumbled to a stop, looked up and saw all of the defenders surprised and looking back.
There were at least a dozen left and they all shifted their weapons to open fire on me. I had my rifle on them first and I cut a line of lead all across the room, tearing most of them apart. The two at the end didn’t make it that long. Instead, they took rounds from my vigilant squad-mates outside.
I scanned my rifle across the mess inside the outpost. Smoking bodies littered the ground all about. At each of the windows were stacked cases of ammunition all the way around. Rifle cartridge casings littered the floor and were piled deep beneath the firing ports. I could see two exits from the room. The first was a hole to the left that lead down some steep stairs into the ground. It was obviously the entrance to the rest of the base. I kept an eye on it as I circled around.
The other was a short staircase leading to another firing platform outside. It’s where I had taken out the rocket team before. An alien corpse was sprawled on the top and had been draining blood down the steps. Its face, exclaiming pain and terror, gave an extra grim visage to the setting.
“Room’s clear. Move in!” I ordered to my team outside. A few kept their positions as overwatch but the rest filtered inside and checked the rest of the bodies.
In the center sat the shield generator contraption. It couldn’t have been the complete device. All that I could see was a massive conglomeration of pipes and conduits, wrapped up tight as hell in a cylinder two meters across stretching floor to ceiling. This might be the transmission device, but they were clearly powered and controlled elsewhere. I considered briefly that the stairs leading down would be accompanied by the generator cables but couldn’t dwell on that for long.
MissionSRX: Confessions of the First War Page 23
